The Best Beauty Looks from Paris Fall 2016

How-To: The dark romance trend, in both fashion and beauty, is as strong as ever for fall, but it's not the most approachable, especially if you're looking to the black lips at shows like Dior and Marc Jacobs for inspiration. Vuitton made the moody mouth sexier and more wearable (you might want to ease up on the gloss) by taking it out of purple territory and pairing it with each model's individual hair texture.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

2 of 16

Getty

Chanel

The Look: Updated Classic

How-To: Karl Lagerfeld loves a theme and certainly knows how to put on a show, but this season, he reined himself in and paid homage to the roots of the brand—pearls, bouclé and, of course, quilting. And thanks to makeup artist Tom Pecheux, the latter showed up in a fresh way: on the eyes. To get the effect, hold a piece of netting or a stencil from the art supply store taut against your lid, then dust black or gray shadow over and clean up the excess that falls below. From afar, it'll pass for a smoky eye; up close, people will be doing triple takes.

How-To: The "pick one feature to highlight" makeup rule is a silly one if you're a Saint Laurent girl. That is, pin-thin in patent stilettos and shoulder pads so large you have to turn sideways to get through the doorframe. You might as well keep the middle-finger theme going with greasy black eye paint, bushy brows and aggressively cool orange-red lips.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

4 of 16

Imaxtree

Sonia Rykiel

The Look: Young Bardot

How-To: Paul Hanlon described the perfectly rumpled waves he created backstage as "very Parisian girl going to the nightclub with quality hair. It's classic Bardot, very much like Julie's [de Libran, the designer] or Kate Moss." He added extensions to most models for volume, not length, then tonged big sections. "We're making it beautiful, then destroying it, because if you do it too natural, it looks sad and skinny," said Hanlon, who misted dry shampoo and salt spray through the waves, then massaged it in roughly at the back of the crown with his hands for a "sexy, got-out-of-bed, pillow hair, like a guy has messed it up."

How-To: You'll probably never see the Stella girl with a smoky eye or a red lip; "it's always just very simple," explained Pat McGrath backstage at 8 AM, as she perfected the skin and woke up the eyes of models who were exhausted after a month of shows by drawing a small V at the inner corners of the eyes with white pencil. "It lifts and opens while taking away any redness."

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

6 of 16

Getty

Giambattista Valli

The Look: Bright Young Thing

How-To: "Giambattista always likes to feel like his girl has just come out of the shower and thrown on her dress," said makeup artist Val Garland backstage. "Here, it's all about the celebration of women, which I interpret as, every woman should have a silver lining in her life." Hence, the holographic flashes of sparkle, visible only as the models turned their heads just so on the runway. Garland started by mixing pigment with Mixing Medium to create a liner, which she drew along either the lash line or just under the brow bone. Once that set, she dabbed more clear Mixing Medium over it to act as an adhesive, then applied the ultra-reflective glitter on top.

How-To: "Riccardo wanted tough, rock 'n' roll, rebellious makeup—but not in black," said Pat McGrath, who used taupe-y brown shadow to drawn wings that were similar, but more subdued, to the ones of Spring '15. Guido had the idea for wigs cut into caps that sat tightly on the head and gave a "punk, kind of '70s British street girl vibe." Each wig was dyed a few shades off from the model's natural color, "so you know we're no trying to make it look like her hair."

How-To: Sex, the capital S kind, can have its smoky eyes, its mini skirts, its latex—we like the stripped-down, sensual Nina Ricci version of the word much better. The fall show was about the woman in love at night, loosely pulling her hair back and spritzing perfume on her neck, curling her lashes and adding a couple coats of mascara and giving her eyes, cheeks and lips a healthy pink flush. It's the kind of makeup men love because they think you're not wearing any, and it's the kind we love because it doesn't make a mess of pillowcases or leave us looking like a raccoon the morning after we wake up in someone else's bed.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

9 of 16

Getty

Elie Saab

The Look: Rock 'n' Roll Royalty

How-To: "It's a very rock-chic, moody feeling," said makeup artist Tom Pecheux of the overlapping black ovals, outlined by high-sheen liner, on the eyes at Elie Saab. He blended taupe blush across the entire lid to the end of the brow and just under the lower lashes for a large oval shape, then filled in an almond shape inside that with greasy black gel liner. On top of the gel, he tapped shimmery black pigment. "It's important the eyes look big, and to feel like there's a dark circle inside the taupe oval, otherwise it becomes a makeup commercial in the '90s," said Pecheux.

How-To: True to form, Mugler's fall collection, with its fiery color palette, leopard prints and thigh-high slits, was not made for wallflowers—and neither were the dominant side parts and flashes of orange on the eyes of some models. Eric Antoniotti, Clarins International Artistic Director, rejected the term 'tribal,' and instead described the streak of earthy orange pigment as "natural art that takes us back to our roots." He mixed a soon-to-come shade of Clarins powder eyeshadow with Blue Orchid Oil on the back of his hand, then swiped the paste across the lids with his fingers. "We want the girls to feel strong," said hairstylist James Pecis, who made side parts, blow-dried the hair smooth with mousse, then draped the front section across the forehead to look like fringe. "Center parts are easy cool, but there's a little bit more strength in the side part. I know that sounds silly, but it does make a difference."

How-To: Makeup artist Val Garland cited "Charlotte Rampling in a Helmut Newton photograph" as the inspiration behind the three eye looks she created backstage: one, "a Velvet Underground, rock revolutionary party girl in green [above];" two, romantic pink glitter; and three, "mess-cara," which was more '60s Twiggy than morning after clumpy. To get the final result on the glittery girls to look so precise and pigmented, Garland began by applying cream eye shadow as a base. Next, she went over that with powder shadow to set and intensify it. Then she dipped a liner brush into M.A.C. Mixing Medium, which acts as adhesive, dipped it into glitter and lightly pressed it onto the lid. Black winged liner was added as a final touch to the outside edges for a rock 'n' roll framing.

How-To: Isabel Marant hair is usually synonymous with Parisian hair—that is, easy, effortless, nothing. This season, however, Marant "wanted more of a statement," said Guido as he styled three different looks—quiff chignons with a fifties feel, and soft blowouts with heavy sideswept bangs that worked with the more eighties-themed collection. The key is to use "just a little bit of hairspray," especially on curls; Guido misted water from a spray bottle to keep things feeling light and soft instead of shellacked.

How-To: According to Peter Philips, Creative and Image Director of Christian Dior Makeup, the beauty look all started with a so-dark-it's-almost-black purple lipstick called Poison that current designers Lucie Meier and Serge Ruffieux loved. From there, "it was all about contradictions," said Philips. "They went for something boyish with the hair, but at the same time, buns are girly. With the makeup, we went for a really sophisticated, intense, almost dangerous lip, but to make it less gothic and more glamorous, we added a high gloss, high shine. For the eyes, I said, 'let's go for extreme volume in mascara, but not like a beautiful fan of lashes, a bit more punkish.'" His trick for making the lip color both opaque and dimensional is four-pronged: Outline the lips in matching 'Poison' lip liner, fill them in with black eyeliner, apply the lipstick (twice, mattifying with a Kleenex in between), then go over with lip gloss right before the runway, so as not to get a swipe of lacquered black across the clothes. The lashes, which Philips euphemistically described as "packages of lashes" rather than clumpy, were achieved through first brushing on a clear primer, then going over that with two coats of black mascara, the second one applied in swirling fan motions as the first was almost dry. Over in hair, Guido was giving models two low mini twists on either side of the head, a nod to the '20s and '30s—and not to Björk, Princess Leia or prairie girls.

How-To: Adventure-seeking, well-traveled women—the kind who manage to look effortlessly chic as they weave in and out of traffic and across the countryside on motorcycles—inspired the weathered eye makeup and lightly flattened hair on the models at Chloé. Aaron de Mey drew black liner with a greasy finish along the waterline, dragged it down under the eyes and then wiped the color away with a Q-tip dipped in gloss. "I'm trying to get them to look imperfect, asymmetric and worn-in, like they've had the makeup on for a couple days. But not in the sense of looking rough; I just want to give them a slight toughness."

How-To: While the majority of models walked the runway with Parisian au natural makeup, three were given crystal cat-eyes that Tom Pecheux described as looking like "Beauty & the Beast." To create them, he drew wings across the lids and out with shiny black liner, pressed makeup adhesive at the outer corners and "glued" down deconstructed pieces of the earrings in the collection. The final step, to keep the crystals from feeling too overpowering, involved tracing the liner along the lower lashes and up around the edge of the embellishment for seamless fluidity.

A Part of Hearst Digital Media
Harper's BAZAAR participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means Harper's BAZAAR gets paid commissions on purchases made through our links to retailer sites.